The Best of Bova: Volume 1

by Ben Bova

  “This is no time for jokes!”

  “A sense of humor helps, Jason. Believe me. But you can’t picture me working for a bunch of blacks and browns and yellows, can you? That’s so completely against your inner convictions that you can’t imagine a fellow WASP going over to the Third World.”

  “Perhaps I can imagine it, at that,” Lyle said, with dawning apprehension lighting his eyes. “Your assignment was to terminate Rungawa.”

  “Ah, yes,” Keating said. “Kabete Rungawa. The Black Saint of the Third World. The spiritual leader of the poor nations.”

  Lyle almost spat. “That old bastard is as spiritual as . . .”

  “As Gandhi,” Keating said, sudden steel in his voice. “And as powerful politically. That’s why you want him terminated.”

  Lyle stared at Keating for long, silent moments before saying, “Rungawa. He turned you around! Jesus Christ, you fell for that black bastard’s mealy-mouthed propaganda line.”

  “Yes, I did,” said Keating. “Not in the way you’re thinking, though. Rungawa is quite a person. He made me see that murdering him would be a horrible mistake. He opened my eyes.”

  “You admit it?”

  “Why not? It’s already in the debriefing reports, isn’t it?”

  The glitter in Lyle’s cold blue eyes told Keating that it was.

  “But here’s something that isn’t in the reports, Jason. Something so utterly fantastic that you won’t believe it.”

  The section chief leaned forward in anticipation. Hearing secrets was his trade.

  “Kabete Rungawa is an extraterrestrial.”

  “What?”

  “He looks human, but he’s actually from another world.”

  Lyle’s mouth hung open for a second, then clicked shut. “Are you joking, Jeremy, or what?” he asked angrily.

  “That’s what he told me,” Keating said.

  “And you believed him?”

  Keating felt a smile cross his lips as he recalled that cold, rainy night in front of the Parthenon. His mission had been to terminate Rungawa, and he had finally tracked the Black Saint to the Acropolis.

  “He was very convincing,” Keating said softly. “Very convincing.”

  Lyle looked down at his untouched lunch, then back into Keating’s eyes. “Jeremy, either you’re lying through your teeth or you’ve gone around the bend.”

  “It’s the truth, Jason.”

  “You want me to believe that you think it’s the truth.”

  “Would I tell such a crazy story if it weren’t the truth?”

  The section chief seemed to suddenly realize that he held a knife and fork in his hands. He attacked the Virginia ham vigorously as he said, “Yes, I think you might. A completely wild story might make us believe that you’ve flipped out, might convince us that you ought to be retired.”

  “To a mental institution?”

  “This isn’t Russia,” Lyle snapped. But then, looking up from his platter at Keating again, he added, “A good long rest might be what you need, though. You wouldn’t be the first field agent to suffer from burnout.”

  “A permanent rest?” Keating asked.

  Lyle turned his attention back to his food. “Just relax and eat your lunch. We’ll take care of you, Jeremy. The agency takes care of its own.”

  Keating took the afternoon off and drove far out into the wooded Virginia hills, without any conscious destination, merely drove through the late March sunshine in his agency-furnished inconspicuous gray Ford. He did not have to be told that it was bugged; that anything said inside the car would be faithfully recorded back at headquarters. And there were tracking transmitters built into the car, naturally. Even if he drove it to Patagonia, satellite sensors would spot him as plainly as they count missile silos in Siberia.

  And he knew, just as surely, that he expected a contact, a message, a set of instructions or some sort of help from the entity he had refrained from killing that rainy night atop the Acropolis.

  How can I be so certain that he’ll help me? Keating asked himself as he drove. There’s no doubt in my mind that he is what he said he is: an extraterrestrial, a creature from another world, sent here to keep us from blowing ourselves to kingdom come with our nuclear toys. But will he help me? Am I important enough to his plans to be rescued? Does he know what Lyle is going to do to me? Does he give a damn?

  No answers came out of the sky as Keating drove blindly toward Charlottesville. It was not until he turned onto Interstate 64 and saw the signs for Monticello that he realized where he was heading.

  He joined a group of five Japanese tourists and followed the guides through Thomas Jefferson’s home, half listening to the guides’ patter, half looking at the furnishings and gadgets of the brightest man ever to live in the White House. In the back of his mind Keating realized that he had slept in hotel rooms far more luxurious than Jefferson’s bedroom. Was he one of them? he wondered. Were they tinkering with our world’s politics that far back?

  Keating kept pace with the other tourists, but his attention was actually focused on a message that never came. He felt certain that they—whoever they were—would contact him. But by the time his group had been ushered back to the main entrance of the house, at the end of the tour, there had been no contact. He was out in the cold, completely alone.

  He drove back in darkness to the apartment in Arlington that the agency had provided for him. It was a pleasant-enough set of rooms, with a view of the Washington Monument and the Capitol dome. Keating could sense the bugs that infested the walls, the phone, most likely the entire building. A fancy jailhouse, he knew.

  His apartment was on the top floor of the six-story building. Death row? Very likely. Lyle could not risk letting him go loose. And there were no close relatives or friends to raise a fuss about him.

  He knew that he had to make a break for it, and it had to be tonight. If Rungawa and his people would not help him, then he would have to do it alone. Have dinner, then take the car and drive out to the nearest shopping mall. Use the crowds to lose whatever tails they’ve put on me. Then get to Rungawa, one way or another. He owes me a favor.

  Keating took a frozen dinner from the refrigerator, microwaved it into a semblance of food, and sat in front of the living room TV set to eat what might be his last meal. But after a few bites of the lukewarm Salisbury steak, he felt himself nodding off. For a moment he felt panic surge through him like an electric current, but long years of practice damped it down. A short nap won’t hurt, he told himself. Forty winks. He drowsed off in the comfortable reclining chair, while the TV screen played out a drama about corporate power and sexual passion in the cosmetics business.

  “Mr. Keating.”

  He awoke with a start, looked around the living room. No one.

  “Here, Mr. Keating. Here.”

  The TV screen showed the kindly looking face of an elderly black man: Kabete Rungawa.

  “You!”

  Rungawa smiled and lowered his eyes briefly, almost as if embarrassed.

  “Forgive this unorthodox way of communicating with you. Your erstwhile colleagues have listening devices on the telephone . . .”

  “And in the walls,” Keating said.

  Rungawa replied, “They will not hear this conversation. As far as their devices are concerned, you are still asleep and the eleven o’clock news is on the air.”

  Hunching forward in his chair, Keating asked, “How do I know that I’m not asleep, and that this isn’t just a dream?”

  “That is a question of faith, Mr. Keating,” said the black man gravely. “Can you trust your own senses? Only your own inner faith can give you the answer.”

  “They’re going to kill me,” Keating said.

  “You told them about us.” Rungawa’s face became somber.

  “I told them about you.”

  “That was not wise.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Keating said. “Lyle thinks that either I’m a colossal liar or a crackpot.”

&nbs
p; The black man almost smiled. “Still, we would prefer that no one knew of our presence. I told you only because my life was at stake.”

  “Well, it’s my life that’s at stake now. Lyle’s going to terminate me.”

  “Yes, we know. It will happen tonight.”

  “How can I—”

  “You can’t. You mustn’t. The game must be played to its conclusion.”

  “Game? It’s my life we’re talking about!”

  “It is your faith we are talking about,” the black man said solemnly, in his rumbling bass voice. “You believed what I told you that night in front of the Parthenon. You spared my life.”

  “But you’re not going to spare mine,” Keating said.

  “Have faith, Mr. Keating. Haven’t your own prophets told you that faith can carry you beyond death? Christ, Mohammed, Buddha—haven’t they all tried to tell you the same thing?”

  “Don’t talk philosophy to me! I need help!”

  “I know you do, Mr. Keating. It will come. Have faith.”

  Keating started to reply, but found that he could not open his mouth, could not even move his tongue. He no longer had control of his limbs. He sat frozen in the recliner chair, unable to move his legs, his arms. He could not even lift a finger from the padded armrest.

  His throat was dry with sudden fear, his innards trembled with a fear that was fast approaching panic. I don’t want to die! his mind screamed silently, over and again. I don’t want to die!

  “I know the terror you feel, Mr. Keating,” Rungawa’s deep voice said gravely. “It pains me to put you through this. But it must be done. They will never rest until you are dead and can no longer harm or embarrass them. I am truly sorry, but you will not be the first casualty we suffer.”

  Don’t let them kill me! Keating shrieked inside his head.

  But Rungawa said only, “Good night, Mr. Keating.”

  Jeremy’s eyes slowly closed, like the curtain going down on the last act of a tragic play. Locked inside his paralyzed body, imprisoned within his own unresponding flesh, Keating saw nothing but darkness as he awaited inevitable death.

  Slowly, slowly, the thundering of his heart eased. In the background he could hear the television set’s sound again. The eleven o’clock news chattered away, to be followed by a talk show. Still Keating sat, unable to move a voluntary muscle, unable even to open his eyes. He tried to picture Joanna and little Jerry, Jr., tried to tell himself that he would be with them at last, but a cold voice in his mind laughed mockingly and told him that he had never believed in life after death. Get accustomed to the darkness, Jeremy, he told himself. This is all there will ever be.

  He wanted to cry, but even that was denied him. You’re already as good as dead, the ice-hard voice said. What did you have to live for, anyway?

  Time became meaningless. The voices from the television set changed, but Keating paid scant attention to them. They were nothing more than background sound effects; like the muted organ music played in a cathedral before the funeral service begins.

  The click of the lock sounded like a pistol shot to him. He heard the front door open and then softly close. They had the key to the apartment, of course. The jailers always have the keys. The floor was carpeted, but Keating clearly heard the soft footfalls approaching him. Like a man who had been blind from birth, Keating’s sense of hearing seemed magnified, hypersensitive. He could hear the man’s breathing from halfway across the living room.

  He knew it was not Lyle himself. The section chief would never dirty his own hands. With something of a shock Keating realized that he hardly knew anyone else at the agency. Four years of service and he had barely made an acquaintance. The voice inside his head laughed scornfully again. You’ve been dead for years, old boy. You just didn’t realize it.

  “Wake up, man. Come on, wake up!”

  Jeremy’s eyes snapped open.

  A swarthy, pinch-faced, dapper little man with a neatly trimmed black mustache was leaning over him.

  “Wha . . . who . . . ?“ Jeremy’s tongue felt thick, his eyes gummy. But he could speak. He could move again.

  “Never mind who,” the man said. “We gotta get you outta here! Fast!”

  Feeling almost dizzy with surprise, Jeremy sat up straight in the recliner and planted his feet on the floor. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t got time to explain, man. We only got a couple minutes before they get here! Come on!”

  He looked Hispanic, or maybe Italian. He wore a white suit with a double-breasted jacket; strange outfit for an undercover agent. Or an extraterrestrial. Confused, Jeremy struggled to his feet. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the television set was playing an old black-and-white movie now.

  “Splash some water on your face, wake yourself up. We gotta move fast.”

  Jeremy tried to shake the cobwebs out of his head. He lumbered to the bathroom and ran the cold water. The little man watched from the doorway. His suit was rumpled, baggy; it looked as if he had been wearing it for a long time. He pulled a small silver flask from his inside pocket, opened it, and took a long pull from it.

  “Take a swig of this; it’ll open your eyes for you.” Jeremy took the pint-sized flask and sniffed at its open mouth. Spanish brandy. He took a small, testing sip.

  “Where are we . . .”

  He never finished the sentence. A searing explosion of pain blasted through him. The flask fell from his spasming fingers, and the last thing he saw was the little man deftly catching it before it hit the floor.

  Jeremy lurched to the sink, then collapsed across it and slid to the tile flooring. The pain faded away into darkness. He could feel nothing. He could not hear his heart beating, could not draw a breath.

  Vaguely, far off in the darkly vast distance, he heard the electronic bleep of a pocket radio and the little man’s voice saying, “Okay, he’s had his heart attack. Looks very natural.”

  He opened his eyes and saw a featureless expanse of white. For what seemed like a measureless eternity he stared blankly at it. Then, at last, realizing that he was breathing slowly, rhythmically, he deliberately blinked his eyes and tried to turn his head.

  The expanse of white was nothing more than the ceiling of the room he was in. He was lying in a bed, covered with a sheet and a thin white blanket. It looked like a hospital room, or perhaps a private room in an expensive rest home. Modern furniture, all in white: dresser, desk and chair, night table beside the bed, comfortable-looking upholstered chair beside the window. Sunshine streaming in, but the window blinds were angled so that he could not see outside. And he noticed that there were no mirrors in the room; not one, even over the dresser. Three doors. One of them was slightly ajar and showed the corner of a bathroom sink. The second must be a closet, Keating reasoned. The third door opened just then and Kabete Rungawa stepped in.

  “You have awakened,” he said, smiling. Somehow, even when he smiled, his face had the sadness of the ages etched into it.

  Keating said nothing.

  “You have returned from the dead, Mr. Keating. Welcome back to life.”

  “I was really dead?”

  “Oh, yes. Quite. Your agency is very thorough.”

  “Then how . . . ?”

  Rungawa asked permission to sit on the edge of the bed by making a slight gesture and raising his snowy eyebrows. Keating nodded and the old man sat beside him. The bed sagged disturbingly under him, even though he looked small and almost frail.

  “Your own medical science can bring a man back from clinical death, in certain cases,” the Black Saint said gently. “Our science is somewhat more advanced than that.”

  “And the agency . . . Lyle . . .”

  “Mr. Lyle was present at your cremation. He was given your ashes, since you had no next of kin listed in your personnel file.”

  Keating thought swiftly. “You switched bodies at the crematorium.”

  “Something like that,” said Rungawa.

  “Then you really are . . . what you
said you were.”

  Rungawa’s smile broadened. “Did you doubt it? Even when you risked your life on it?”

  “There’s a difference between knowing here,” Jeremy tapped his temple, “and believing, here in the guts, where . . .”

  He stopped in midsentence and stared at the hand that had moved from his head to his midriff. It was not his hand.

  “What have you done to me?” Jeremy’s voice sounded high, shrill, frightened as a little child’s.

  “It was necessary,” Rungawa’s deep voice purred softly, “to give you a new body, Mr. Keating.”

  “A new . . .”

  “Your former body was destroyed. We salvaged your mind—your soul, if you want to use that term.”

  “Where . . . whose body . . . is this?”

  Rungawa blinked slowly once, then replied. “Why, it is your own body, Mr. Keating.”

  “But you said . . .”

  “Ahh, I understand. We did not steal it from anyone.” The black man smiled slightly. “We created it for you especially, just as this body of mine was created for me. You would not expect a being from another world, thousands of light-years from your Earth, to look like a human being, would you?”

  Jeremy swallowed once, twice, then managed to say, “No, I guess not.”

  “It is a very good body, Mr. Keating. A bit younger than your former shell, quite a bit stronger, and with a few special sensitivities added to it.”

  Jeremy threw back the bedclothes and saw that he was naked. Good strong legs, flat ridged midsection. His hands looked heavier, fingers shorter and somewhat blunter. His skin was pink, like a baby’s, new and scrubbed-looking.

  Wordlessly, he swung his legs to the floor and stood up. No dizziness, no feeling of weakness at all. He padded to the bathroom, Rungawa a few steps behind him, and confronted himself in the mirror.

  The face he saw was squarish, with curly red-blond hair and a light sprinkling of faint freckles across its snub nose and broad cheeks. The eyes were pale blue.

  “Christ, I look like a teenager!”

  “It is a fully adult body,” Rungawa said gravely.